GOP Budget Plan Causes Anger at Town Hall Meetings

The GOP/Ryan budget plan is not being so well-received at GOP town hall meetings over Congressional recess. From The New York Times:

In central Florida, a Congressional town meeting erupted into near chaos on Tuesday as attendees accused a Republican lawmaker of trying to dismantle Medicare while providing tax cuts to corporations and affluent Americans.

At roughly the same time in Wisconsin, Representative Paul D. Ryan, the architect of the Republican budget proposal, faced a packed town meeting, occasional boos and a skeptical audience as he tried to lay out his party's rationale for overhauling the health insurance program for retirees.

In a church theater here on Tuesday evening, a meeting between Representative Allen B. West and some of his constituents began on a chaotic note, with audience members quickly on their feet, some heckling him and others loudly defending him. "You're not going to intimidate me," Mr. West said. 

After 10 days of trying to sell constituents on their plan to overhaul Medicare, House Republicans in multiple districts appear to be increasingly on the defensive, facing worried and angry questions from voters and a barrage of new attacks from Democrats and their allies.

The proposed new approach to Medicare - a centerpiece of a budget that Republican leaders have hailed as a courageous effort to address the nation's long-term fiscal problems - has been a constant topic at town-hall-style sessions and other public gatherings during a two-week Congressional recess that provided the first chance for lawmakers to gauge reaction to the plan.

An example of the response came Tuesday as Representative Daniel Webster, a freshman Republican from Florida, faced an unruly crowd at a packed town meeting in Orlando, where some people, apparently organized or encouraged by liberal groups, brandished signs saying "Hands Off Medicare" and demanded that he instead "tax the rich."

On the GOP's biggest issue, it seems to be in the process of blowing the politics. And it's not surprising that a harsh austerity plan is unpopular. At a time of high unemployment, surging gas prices, and stagnant household incomes, offering a plan that offers Americans less from their government seems pretty tone-deaf.